You said only based on precedent. No room there for, say, instincts. I suppose I did overinterpret when I said you required it to be ideal. It could be suboptimal and fit.

I think you need to look up precedent. All it means is that one base one ruling off a previous ruling that has similar characteristics. It says nothing about what guided the original ruling. If in the previous event you used instinct to success, then experience suggests that you re-use the instinct-based decision again, since it should have similar results and those were desorable. If instinct led to disaster, then precedent suggests choosing a different decision making methodology. My original statement is inclusive of all decision making processes. You can substitute logic, emotion, politics, prioritization, or any of 100 different processes for "instinct" in that sentence, and it is still precedent-based.

The connotation of excessive reliance on logic was entirely yours, and not intended by me in the slightest.

Quote:

As for engrams... what do you think YOU should be made of? What ARE we? You act as if your component parts were foreign bodies. It's like a philosophical autoimmune disorder.

Again, you are asking the same question. Where does the Self-aware part of the mind begin and the automatic part end. The benefit of active logic is that you can connect the Truths until you gt to the Truth or Falsehood of the statement in question. Logic is an active thought process. Inspiration comes without active thought input. I may be responsible for the inspiration-inspired solution, but it is in the same way a parent is responsible for the actions of a child -- someone must be responsible and the child has no concept of responsibility, so it is the governing body that takes the hit, even though it had nothing to do with the choice to cause the problem.

Anyway, I think that here we have to agree to disagree. You seem to be not presenting any points, only questioning mine, so I think we're done, no? I'm fairly certain you won't let me convince you of anything.

You said only based on precedent. No room there for, say, instincts. I suppose I did overinterpret when I said you required it to be ideal. It could be suboptimal and fit.

I think you need to look up precedent. All it means is that one base one ruling off a previous ruling that has similar characteristics.

I know very well what precedent means. I've just thought through what you said in a different way than you did - are you saying that in any unprecedented situation, whatever's going on in your brain isn't free will?

Kreistor wrote:

Again, you are asking the same question. Where does the Self-aware part of the mind begin and the automatic part end. ... I may be responsible for the inspiration-inspired solution, but it is in the same way a parent is responsible for the actions of a child...

So you think that reflection is what makes it free will? That's a fairly viable interpretation.

I don't see why you don't get to claim your inspiration directly. It came from a part of you. Not the self-reflective part, but that is just a part.

Kreistor wrote:

Anyway, I think that here we have to agree to disagree. You seem to be not presenting any points, only questioning mine, so I think we're done, no? I'm fairly certain you won't let me convince you of anything.

well, that was passive-aggressive, wasn't it? You've already convinced me of something - not that you're entirely correct, but something. Mainly, I just find your way of thinking about this to be really weird. You carve this problem up very differently than I do.

In scenario 2 i made a different choice, due to my anger. However, I chose to make that decision while angry, and so it was a free will decision.

In Scenario 3, I did not choose to be angry, and I cannot overcome it. I must make a choice, and it is going to be influenced by the anger created by my environment (drugs in my body) to be one I would not otherwise choose. Here is where free will is overridden by the environment, and I no longer have responsibility for making choice Z. Here there is no free will.

In scenario 4, we again have an uncontrolled influence on my decision making process. The environment is altering my decision, and I cannot overcome the anger any more than someone injecting me directly. This gets into extremely questionable grounds as to responsibility. Without the chemical imbalance, I would choose differently. I can understand people taking the position that it is free will, since I must learn to deal with the effect of anger constantly. I disagree, and point out that I am no more capable of overcoming a genetic predisposition to anger than someone doping me into anger.

The edge of free will is best approached in this manner. Modifying scenarios slightly to figure out where your responsibility begins and ends relates directly to free will.

And in this comic, I contest that Parson has no free will.

I'm an idea guy. I get idea after idea. I tear into systems of regulations and rules to find the abuses. They just come to me, inspired. And 90% of the time, I choose to not use any of them.

Maggie presents that the idea to uncroak the volcano is Parson's, and that he is responsible for it. I completely reject that position. I have a hundred ideas a day that I actively reject, because they are vile, immoral, or abusive. Anything that forces me to commit one of those ideas must itself be responsible for the action, not me, because I cannot stop my brain from putting the ideas in my head: I can only choose to reject them. if something takes away my ability to rationally reject my bad ideas, then I will never accept responsibility for them.

Free will can come in degrees of impairment, and each step you outlined increased that impairment, in the order 1243. The only thing that makes 4 worse than 2 is the idea that since it's an imbalance, then you have inconsistent preferences, so the fit of a free will model to your brain isn't as good. 3 is especially non-free-willed because it involves an outside agent changing the mind in place.

I've got no problem with the idea that Parson and Erfians are under mind control and thus have curtailed free will. Also, we can have free will on some issues while lacking it entirely on others. Like, I have absolutely no free will on the matter of my being attracted to women and not men.

Oh, perception is often flawed. We perceive based on more than just our sensor systems, but on systems that process the data and feed it into our minds.

The best example i think comes from thoughts while sleeping. Some people wake up in the middle of the night and say, "Eureka! What a great idea! I'll remember that in the morning and become a millionaire!" In the AM they can't remember it. A few realize they need to write these ideas down and review them in the morning. Those that do read, "Football Midsummer Income Scarlet." The mind had attached these concepts together in sleep along with "Great idea!" It wasn't a great idea, it was just random thoughts attached together with "Great idea!" I was never a sufferer of this particular event, but it did happen once, and I did write down similar foolishness to the above.

So, what can happen is that we can perceive our actions as our own, not because they were, but because our mind attaches the concept of "free will" to an action. Rather than being a truly free will based choice, we merely perceive it as such because our mind is genetically designed to give us the comfort of thinking we have free will. Our Ego decides anything we do is our own free will and defends it without question, because to accept that it wasn't is a blow to our Ego. We want to believe that our conscious mind is always in control and overrides instinct and impulse, but that is simply not true. We will defend that we are always in control, though.

You have not perceived an illusion that successfully fools you. Even if aware that an illusion may exist, you are still suffering the result of its effects. So, it is the illusion that you perceive your own actions as free will. The illusion of perception.

The fault of this is that Predictamancy states that at some point, P(x) = 100, where x is an event at some point in the future, and that an event WILL occur, not that it will NOT occur. Luckamancy can indeed alter P(E) > 0, or P(E) < 100. Luckamancy exists. x <> E, and Predictamancy exists.

I'll agree with the definition of Luckamancy, especially constrained to a discreet event. I disagree with Predictamancy also being a discreet event with such constraints. With P(x, y) = 100, where x is an event and y is a point in time, something that affects x also affect y. Actions, luckamancy, inactions, and fighting against your Fate all alter x, which also alters y. The amount of change in y is the backlash of Number required to balance the equation. The same goes for altering y, by trying to force the event x to happen sooner or later than the original equation.

All of the above, plus Predictions are often more like constraints than specific events.

Even in the case of "Jillian will croak the Ruler of Haffaton", the precise Prediction may have been "A Chief Warlord of Faq named Jillian will croak the Ruler of Haffaton." Marie might be upset with Banhammer's threat to croak Jillian not because it would have made the Prediction impossible, but because it would require Fate to arrange for a Side named Faq to acquire another Chief Warlord named Jillian, and since that wouldn't tend to happen naturally, it would be a hard road for everyone. The alternate path might involve the Side of Faq ending and then a new Side named Faq being formed by chance thousands of turns later, after Haffaton has established enough heirs to ensure that the the croaking of their Ruler doesn't stop them from addicting most of Erfworld to heroine buds. On the other hand, if the Prediction was specifically about the Jillian we know, reincar-popping might be possible in Erfworld, in which case Faq might not be involved at all.

If Predictions are always technically constraints rather than events, then Predictamancy would be compatible with Luckamancy, free will, and true randomness.

Kreistor wrote:

Maggie presents that the idea to uncroak the volcano is Parson's, and that he is responsible for it. I completely reject that position. I have a hundred ideas a day that I actively reject, because they are vile, immoral, or abusive. Anything that forces me to commit one of those ideas must itself be responsible for the action, not me, because I cannot stop my brain from putting the ideas in my head: I can only choose to reject them. if something takes away my ability to rationally reject my bad ideas, then I will never accept responsibility for them.

That reminds me of the Foundation series, where a Gaia planet wanted to make a Gaia galaxy, but it wanted it to be the "choice" of a human representative, so it found the romantic image of the Gaia galaxy in the guy's brain and suppressed his competing thoughts.

Even in the case of "Jillian will croak the Ruler of Haffaton", the precise Prediction may have been "A Chief Warlord of Faq named Jillian will croak the Ruler of Haffaton." Marie might be upset with Banhammer's threat to croak Jillian not because it would have made the Prediction impossible, but because it would require Fate to arrange for a Side named Faq to acquire another Chief Warlord named Jillian, and since that wouldn't tend to happen naturally, it would be a hard road for everyone. The alternate path might involve the Side of Faq ending and then a new Side named Faq being formed by chance thousands of turns later, after Haffaton has established enough heirs to ensure that the the croaking of their Ruler doesn't stop them from addicting most of Erfworld to heroine buds. On the other hand, if the Prediction was specifically about the Jillian we know, reincar-popping might be possible in Erfworld, in which case Faq might not be involved at all.

If Predictions are always technically constraints rather than events, then Predictamancy would be compatible with Luckamancy, free will, and true randomness.

The prediction could have been even more vague than that. It could have been that "a Warlord from Faq would croak the Ruler of Haffaton". "A Warlord from Faq" is a very narrow field of options, so it would be reasonable to assume this would mean the ONLY current warlord of Faq that had any contact with Haffaton, since all other warlord were either pacifists still in Faq, or were croaked by poisoned apples. Haffaton may not even be done at the end of Book 0. Olive could get away and could be serving another Side, just like Wanda. At some point in the future, Wanda could rebuild Goodminton, and Olive could rebuild Haffaton. Faq was already rebuilt by Jillian. One of the new warlords from Faq could one day in the future slay the heir designate on the same day Wanda slays Olive (thus passing the mantle of Ruler of Haffaton to whatever poor schmuck Olive conned into the job).

Wanda sees a situation that meets the criteria of the Prediction and assumes it is the Easy Way.

You haven't perceived THAT it's an illusion, but you had a perception, and that perception was of an illusion.

You asked me to explain my wording. I did so. That you choose to word it differently is irrelevant. It is mine to explain my wording, not yours to question that explanation.

Besides, the illusion is in the interpretation of the event, not the perception of the event. You perceive accurately. You analyze incorrectly. Consequently, there is no illusion to perceive. Fooling yourself happens well after the perception of events.

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